10 Genuinely Frightening, Fresh Horror Movies

Let’s face it: not all horror films nowadays can give us that genuine feeling of dread and terror. In a rush to be the next Halloween or Texas Chainsaw Massacre, many films resort to jump scares or other cheap methods of scaring their audience. However, there are some rare gems to be found in the ever-growing pile of clichés and bad concepts and we’ve picked out only the best for your fright-filled viewing pleasure.

1. 28 Days Later (2002)

Ever wondered what it’d be like to wake up in a city full of mad people trying to kill you? I know, I know, not many people do, but Danny Boyle’s absolutely horrifying realization will plant a pretty good idea of it inside your head.

Where is everyone?

Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes up in an empty hospital after a pretty bad car crash, which is in disarray and nobody seems to be around to tell him what happened. Setting himself out on a path to find out just what’s really going on soon makes him realize a virus has made most of his countrymen crazy and out for his head. Or lungs, heart, whichever internal organ they could get their hands on, really.

28 Days Later is a rollercoaster of constant suspense, danger and nail-biting, incredibly fast chase scenes abundant with camera angles that offer first-hand insight into the pure terror one man can experience.

2. The Babadook (2014)

Psychological horror movies are often praised by true horror connoisseurs because they are able to make you fear for your life without spilling a single drop of blood on-screen, and they often do require more complex writing than “Here’s a monster, now it’s chasing you.”

Amelia and Sam on the hunt for monsters.

The Babadook makes you reconsider all those times you shrugged off a strange sound you heard in your home at night as the rustling of the wind, and will instill a sort of fear in you that you haven’t felt since you were a kid: what if your childhood monsters were real? The lines are blurred between imagination and reality as a protective mother and her imaginative son combat an evil that refuses to leave their household at peace.

3. The Blair Witch Project (1999)

The Blair Witch Project is a 1999 found-footage style project that has set the bar high when it comes to the genre, and although many have tried to copy its unique style through the years, few have succeeded. The movie follows a small group of film students filming a documentary about a local legend named “The Blair Witch”, and an innocent foray into the woods soon becomes a bitter struggle for survival against an unfamiliar and ancient enemy.

Pitch black.

Shaky cameras, an amateur feel to the movie and an ever-growing sense of dread pull you into the movie and don’t let go. It can be said with certainty that the movie popularized the found-footage genre and proved that horror doesn’t need expensive effects and CGI to be scary, making close to $250 million with only a $60 thousand dollar budget.

4. It Follows (2014)

If you haven’t heard of “It Follows” by now, you must have been living under a rock for the past two years. You simply can’t consider yourself a horror junkie without having watched this masterpiece. Now, bear with me. Imagine, if you will, a night out at the bar that ends with you bringing home a cute, nervous, but totally willing girl who wants to have a great time.

Score, right? What if instead of a nasty hangover and a feeling of vain triumph in the morning you wake up with that same girl telling you that something supernatural, invisible and terrifying is on its way right now to murder you? You’d play it off as a sick joke and kick her out, most likely. Problem is, that’d probably be the last thing you’d ever do.

Hope you don’t stop to give her a hand..

After watching this flick, you’ll most definitely avoid making love for a while. A definite top 10 in any horror lover’s collection.

5. The Witch (2015)

The Witch (or alternatively stylized “The VVitch”) takes us back to a simpler time of America’s colonial frontiersmen, where you didn’t have time to fear the unknown because your fear of God was bigger than any other one. A family of seven is banished from their village and is forced to settle in wild untamed land, adjacent to the nearby forest.

Come ‘round these woods often?

Soon, all of their weaknesses and fears are fed upon and exploited by a malevolent creature living deep in the woods, as it plays with the family and uses them against each other like puppets on a string. The 1600s era dialect has been very faithfully recreated in the script making it hard to understand just what is actually going on at times, although the brilliant cinematography speaks volumes.

6. V/H/S (2012)

V/H/S is an entirely different beast. It follows a group of criminals tasked with breaking into a house and stealing a VHS tape. Simple, right? Not so simple when the paranormal is out and about and after their blood.

My, what nice eyes you have…

The film is an anthology of shorter films, each directed by a different person, and tied together by a central ongoing plot. The short films are all based on the concept of found footage, as every segment is from the VHS tape found in the room. The robbers’ fates are decided one by one by something sinister as they watch the ghastly video tapes in the house that was supposed to be their target.

7. Lights Out (2016)

Were you ever afraid of the dark? Of course you were as a kid, we all were. There’s a certain fear in all of us of not knowing just exactly what’s in the corner of your room while you’re asleep. Lights Out taps into that fear, creating a terrifying narrative based around one of the scariest monsters we’ve seen in recent horror films.

Follow the light!

Little Martin (Gabriel Bateman) is haunted by a gruesome creature who can only hide in the shadows and disappears when the lights come on. The worst part in all this, however, is that his own mother is aware of it and can do nothing about his son’s situation. The movie is full of tasteful, frightening moments and makes you extra unnerved and on edge whenever there’s a dimly lit scene on-screen.

8. Hush (2016)

Peek-a-boo.

Holding an impressive 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, Hush is a realization that delivers genuine fright by the boatload. The film follows Maddie (Kate Siegel), a deaf and mute author who lives in an isolated house in the woods. Not at all a ludicrous choice of residence all things considered, nope.

A masked psycho soon learns of her disability and sets upon a ludicrous game of cat and mouse inside the house to kill her. The film industry hasn’t seen many quality slasher flicks lately, and Hush is a breath of fresh air indeed. Props for the scariest mask in recent horror.

9. Ring (2002)

Oh poor dear, you’ll get a cold…

The 2002 American remake of the Japanese horror film still holds up to today’s standards and has withstood the test of time when compared to today’s blockbuster hits. When four teenagers suffer a gruesome death at the hands of a paranormal entity, Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts), a young journalist, is tasked with getting to the bottom of the deaths.

She encounters a mysterious video tape that is rumored to hold a curse that causes anyone who watches it to die a terrible death exactly seven days later. The movie has been referenced many times in early 2000s pop culture which shows just how big of a mark this movie has left on horror films.

10. Oculus (2013)

For all you antique furniture lovers out there.

Taking place in two time periods, the plot of Oculus is told via flashbacks to the past, when the two protagonists, Kaylie and Tim were children, and in the present when they are adults.

After an antique haunted mirror makes their parents slowly descend into insanity and are led to their deaths, Kaylie and Tim join forces after eleven years to figure out the effects of the mirror before ultimately destroying it.

The only thing preventing them from doing so is the fact that the mirror is still very much haunted and will not give in so easily, haunting the unfortunate brother and sister with their wildest nightmares and fears. You have to trust me on this one – Oculus is freaking scary.

In a genre as dynamic as horror, there’s always the need for fresh ideas and frights. Luckily, there seems to be a steady supply of both nowadays and the movies that we’ve selected for you excel in every aspect.

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